A technique of continuing communication via an alternative path in the event of a problem at a radio relay device in a wireless communication system utilizing radio relay has been proposed.
A type of wireless communication system based on Bluetooth and wireless local area network (LAN), etc., has a base station that serves as a center of network and a terminal station that forms a wireless link with the base station. Herein, a base station is equivalent to a master in Bluetooth, or an access point (AP) in wireless LAN. A terminal station is equivalent to a slave in Bluetooth or a station (STA) in wireless LAN
Generally in such a network, it is not easy to continue communications when a problem occurs at the base station. For example, in order to continue communications in the event of such a problem, it is possible to set address information designating a terminal station in place of address information designating the base station in a packet header to be transmitted from a different terminal station. Even if such a procedure is taken, however, the terminal station which receives the packet cannot operate as a base station. Furthermore, it is required that the base station maintains good wireless links with more than one terminal station. However, it is not easy to quickly specify a terminal station that satisfies this condition.